The Child Hunter Little Red Riding Hood (7)

One day, a friend asked me something. Doesn't it make you jealous, seeing happy people?

Watching people who are loved. Watching people whose lives just fall neatly into place.

Doesn't it make your stomach twist, seeing people achieve what they want with less than half the effort you put in?

Well.

I've never exactly had the pleasure of being happy.

My family was poor from the time I was a kid. My parents fought every single day. I missed the cutoff for the university I'd set my heart on, and the scar I got from being hit by my drunk father kept costing me job after job at interviews.

So here I am, washing dishes and scrubbing floors under conditions that skirt the very edge of labor law.

"Yeah. I do envy them."

The world is a pretty bleak place.

Misfortune never stops coming, and every misfortune that arrives makes the next one bigger.

When I pass by a child holding their parents' hands, laughing as they head out somewhere together, I find myself envying them like a petulant brat, no matter how old I'm supposed to be.

And then.

"I hope their family never ends up like mine."

Some part of me secretly prays they'll stay happy and whole for the rest of their lives.

"Ugh…."

"Mnngh…."

It hurt.

It felt like someone was grabbing and pulling my hair. Except the sensation wasn't coming from my head—it was coming from my back.

Strange. I work at a bar, so I keep my hair cropped short, and there shouldn't be any hair on my back at all.

"Uuuugh…"

I couldn't get up. Something seemed to be pinning me down.

And then there were these hands right in front of my eyes.

"Fur?"

Oh, come on.

"What the hell? Why am I still a wolf?"

"Why am I still a—? You ungrateful beast! I stayed up all night stitching your windpipe back together, and this is the thanks I get?"

"Huh? Granny?"

When I opened my eyes, an old woman with her red headscarf untied was stirring an enormous pot.

Stitched my windpipe back together? So I didn't die?

Which means the one yanking on the fur of my back was…

"Uuuum……Wolfy…"

"Little Red Riding Hood?"

So that tiny little imp had been sprawled on top of my sleeping body the whole time. This is animal abuse. Which meant this place was… their home?

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake. Honestly. Even after we dealt with the Red Aura, you wouldn't get up, and this child worried herself sick over you."

"Why am I still alive, exactly?"

I was pretty sure Little Red Riding Hood had shot me dead.

That shot meant death. Granny herself had said that anyone caught in it at that range was absolutely finished….

"I managed."

"I'm sorry? That wasn't exactly something you could just gloss over, was it?"

"I. Managed."

"Repeating it louder doesn't make it an expla— wait. Did you strain yourself terribly trying to save me?"

"Don't you wag your tongue at me in that wolf pelt! When I say I managed, it means I managed!"

It was not the kind of thing that could just be managed, though!

This old woman was trying to bulldoze past the question with sheer momentum instead of explaining anything…!

What on earth happened while I was out…

"Mmm…Wolfy… don't hurt…"

……

You know what? I'll just let it go.

"Haha… I'm sorry. Was it dangerous?"

"The danger wasn't to us, it was to your body. How many days had you gone without eating? Running around in that state, honestly."

"……Sorry, what?"

"None of your polite little 'sorrys.' When I examined you, your vital energy was running on empty."

Starving…?

Well, I had skipped food for about a day yesterday, but.

I only became a wolf yesterday ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the first place.

Don't tell me the state of my original body carried over… no way.

That body died from overwork. If anything had carried over, I wouldn't have been able to move at all.

So this was just the price of burning through too much stamina on an empty stomach for a day.

"You must have a lot of questions. Eat first. We'll leave our little one to sleep."

"I'd love to leave her be, but she's the one clinging to me."

"Then eat quietly so you don't wake her."

What kind of logic is that.

"There. Eat up."

But even absurd logic has its moments, doesn't it.

Because the other party is a muscular granny?

No, ma'am.

"You want me to eat ALL of this…?"

"Did I not just say your energy was depleted? Feeding you back to health is a matter of our family's honor too. I picked every bone out already, so eat."

This is the moment when a granny pours you a heaping plate of meat.

They say grannies can't bear to see anyone go hungry. Turns out that's no exaggeration.

In my entire life, I've never once eaten from a bowl bigger than my face, piled high with meat.

Can I even finish this…?

"Hmpf, chomp gobble…"

"My, aren't you a greedy little eater. Not used to shoving your face straight into the bowl, I see?"

"Ah, well, on that subject I really have nothing to—"

Sluuurp.

"……Granny?"

"You're young enough, and still calling me granny. Fine, fine. Just eat."

Granny had relocated the meat from the pot into the spot where I'd just wolfed it down, wolf-style.

A little more than what had been there originally, at that.

Isn't this a bit much…?

I'm Kang Si-hoo, and I haven't seen a single grandmother—maternal or paternal—since I was twelve.

Even before that, visits were rare. I barely knew them. Both grandmothers had been on terrible terms with our family, anyway.

"Eat plenty. You've been through a lot."

"Yes… yes, ma'am…"

When did I notice something was off?

It was when I realized that the pot she'd been stirring when I woke up was still sitting over there.

And there was another one behind it.

Three?

They're not ALL mine, right…?

"Uuoooh…"

They were all mine.

"I feel like I'm going to burst…"

"A body that size needs that much to run. You'd starved for a while and worn yourself out yesterday too, so fill up properly."

Does this woman know it's bad for you to suddenly eat a huge meal after starving?

Still, since it only left me uncomfortably full rather than genuinely ill, maybe this really was the amount I needed. What a fuel-inefficient body.

"So we're still in the forest, then?"

"That's right. We decided you'd rest and recover here for the day."

The brown wolf was dead.

The Red Aura had erased it from head to toe, and it hadn't come back. Red Clan disciples were patrolling the forest in case it somehow revived.

They said not to worry—even without the Red power, they were superb martial artists.

And most importantly.

"You're not a wolf, are you? How did you end up in that shape?"

"Huh?"

While I slept. And while I gnawed on meat. Granny had apparently figured out that I wasn't actually a wolf.

"I was human originally, but how did you…?"

"Fifty years I've made my living as a hunter. I can tell just by looking. Your breathing isn't a wolf's. It's closer to a human's. Even the cleverest wolf in the world couldn't manage that, not with practice."

Of course. The clan that channels superhuman power through breathing!

I have absolutely no idea how wolf breathing differs from human breathing, but apparently Granny can see it.

"I'm glad we found out, but you'd best fix it quickly. A habit that doesn't suit your body is a bad habit. Breathing especially—if you can't regulate it properly, the strain on your stamina will be enormous."

"Sorry? I haven't noticed anything like that…"

"That's only because that body of yours is absurdly sturdy. Otherwise your insides would've been scooped hollow by now."

So the terrible fuel efficiency was because of the breathing.

Even when I'd gone for a tackle, I'd had to steady my breath first. Does it affect strength too…?

"Wandering around in the shape of a wolf, of all things. If you go about like that, some brave soul will lop your head off and turn it into a heroic tale."

"Honestly, I was still clinging to the hope that I'm just a really, really big dog."

Everyone's got it wrong. I'm probably a dog, right?

Granny snorted that hope right out of the air.

"So. What witch did you run into?"

"Well, you see…"

I told her I seemed to have come from another world.

I expected to get told off for joking around, but Granny's expression stayed dead serious.

It got worse when I rattled off some knowledge from my world. Textbook-level stuff, but still.

"Are there others like me?"

"Hmm… rare, but they exist. It's a story I heard from my grandmother, mind you. Every once in a great while, an otherworlder appears—someone from somewhere that isn't this Faelim of ours."

"They just… come into being?"

"That's what I was told. But I don't know the details myself. I always wrote it off as the kind of thing that only happens in fairy tales."

Fairy tales.

To me, this entire world is the fairy tale.

So I've become a fairy-tale creature inside a fairy tale.

Yeah. Not thrilling at all.

"Is there any way to go back to my original world? To be human again, too?"

"Hard to say. If it's being human you want, you could always seek out a witch."

"……"

"Don't make that face. The fine witches are respected by everyone. It's that wolf of yours that was the strange one."

"Ugh… still…"

A witch.

The wolf that witch sent nearly killed everyone involved, and now I'm supposed to go find her?

No matter how impressive she might be, the first impression is already ruined. I don't even know who this witch is. What if I barge in carelessly and something terrible happens?

"And going back to my own world—"

"Oh? There's a way for that too?"

"There is. Though this one's an even deeper fairy-tale thing…"

Granny squeezed her eyes shut and hemmed and hawed dramatically.

How impressive could the thing possibly be, that she needed this much buildup?

"Mmm… the King of Faelim, maybe. He could do it."

"The King?"

"Yes. Not the king of any one country—the King of this entire world. But that's just a fairy tale too. People only pass the story down by word of mouth."

"So… nobody actually knows whether he exists?"

"That's about the size of it."

In the end, nothing was certain….

The best I had was that a witch might be able to restore my human form.

I really, really don't want to. But.

"I'm sorry I can't give you firmer answers. Even our clan holds real influence in Faelim, and even we treat these as fairy tales. The King. The otherworlders. All of it."

"It's fine. None of this is exactly a normal situation."

If anything, I don't know why she's apologizing.

They dropped out of another world into this one. She'd have been well within her rights to snap at me for lying, just like I'd expected.

And for all that, I'd gathered quite a lot of information.

"It beats starting from bare dirt."

Going home might be a fairy tale, but at least now I knew how to become human again.

A witch.

If I went to meet one, surely I'd learn something. Maybe even why I ended up here at all.

"Please tell me where I need to go. I'll pay her a visit."

"Let's go, Wolfy!"

"I said I'd go alone."

"Let's gooo!"

"I said, alone."

Something's wrong here. Granny promised she'd see me off after one more night's sleep.

So why is Little Red Riding Hood still riding on my back?

"Our clan has always sent its young on expeditions once they come of age. And our little one has reached that age already…"

"Expedition? What on earth does that mean?"

"We are a clan of hunters and martial artists. You prove yourself an inheritor of the clan's legacy by going out, slaying a mighty foe, and returning."

No, hold on.

You're throwing this tiny child out into the wide world just like that.

And to top it off, you're sticking me to her?

"That's not happening!"

"What's not happening? Our Little Red Riding Hood is offering to go with you, and instead of thanking her—"

"Granny, I am being completely serious! How am I supposed to take care of her?!"

"Well then. Is it any more sensible for a wolf to go wandering the roads people travel?"

"…Ah."

It isn't, is it!

Wolves in this world are clever and vicious as a rule, she'd said.

Breathing my way into being recognized as harmless takes someone of this granny's caliber. The disciples—seven out of ten of them—couldn't tell. It's not a skill just anyone has.

"Don't worry, Wolfy! I'll chase off any bad people or animals!"

"With the child along, nothing will come of it unless something serious happens. Our clan is famous, after all."

"Still, shouldn't you attach someone famous and experienced? I can't exactly interview for a babysitter."

"She'll manage."

"She'll manage!"

What is with you people.

Why does your whole clan assume even a small child can handle anything? It's terrifying.

Come to think of it, maybe I didn't just stumble into meeting absurdly powerful people the moment I arrived in this world.

If so, maybe that's actually a blessing in disguise.

Things harder and more dangerous than what just happened should be few and far between.

Maybe that's a kind of courage. Yes! I've already killed an immortal wolf—what's left to be afraid of!

"Little Red Riding Hood. On our clan's honor, go and hunt down the witch who sent that wolf!"

"Yeah! I'll make the mean witch pay!"

"No—Granny! No matter what, you don't get to call hunting down a person a hunt!"

A witch hunt? Seriously?!

That's walking straight up to the most ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dangerous thing out there and picking a fight!

"Let's go, Wolfy. I know the way."

"No! I'll go somewhere safe by myself!"

"And where would that be? A clueless wolf like you wandering around alone will have his head detached inside a day."

"That's even worse!"

Had I once thought I'd fallen into this world just to help them for that one day?

Think it through. Once we'd all survived, once lives had been saved—was a bond like that ever going to end so easily?

"Wolfy! Run! Jump, jump!"

"Ugh, fine. I don't know anymore. Let's just try it, whatever! Hold on tight!"

"Wooow!"

It's not like I picked up someone's lost wallet on the street or anything.

But parting that cleanly, that easily—it felt a little too desolate, somehow.

"Come home safe, child! And next time, come back wearing a human face!"

"Why would we come back?!"

"Yeah! We'll be back together in no time!"

"UWAAAAH!"

"Hey, you. Couldn't you have at least gone out to see her off? That wolf saved your mother's life—he owes her a face to remember."

The Red Hood Granny had come back to her cabin after seeing her granddaughter off with tears in her eyes.

And behind the trees, someone had been waiting for her.

"So the wolf really is gone, then? Red Cloak."

"Yes. At the very least, he's not in this forest anymore."

She looked exactly like Little Red Riding Hood.

No—perhaps it would be more accurate to say the girl took after her.

Anyone who saw them would know, without needing to ask, that this woman was Little Red Riding Hood's mother.

"Ugh, you. If you'd shown up thirty seconds sooner, the child wouldn't have had to go through all that!"

"Yes. Because Mommy's old and slow."

"Why, you little—! The older you get, the nastier your tongue. Who on earth did you take after?"

"You."

"What did you say?! Would it kill you to say a full sentence, you brat?!"

When she was young, she really had been beautiful.

Her temper was just as sour back then, but she was young enough that it looked cute.

And now she'd grown into an insolent old daughter who talked back and wouldn't respect her parents at all.

Still, for all her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grumbling, it wasn't as though they were actually on bad terms.

"Aigoo… what a relief. Without you, that wolf never would have been put down."

"He saved family. That's what family's saviors are for."

After all, if they'd truly been on bad terms, they wouldn't be the Red Clan—they'd have split into Red Cloak and Red Hood, mother and daughter.

"Right. What could I possibly say to you? You felled that monster outside the forest and sprinted straight here."

By all rights, she was supposed to come visit the next day.

Worried about her young daughter and her aging mother, she'd run the whole way in one breath—and arrived to that scene.

They'd settled it quickly enough. Still, it did smell rather suspicious, didn't it.

"You're telling me there's no witch who can create an immortal being?"

"Not a chance."

"Figured as much…"

Witches are great mages, yes. But creating ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a monster that survives death, that regenerates even when its body bursts apart—that's beyond them.

Not that I can say it's truly impossible. But as far as any of them knows, no such witch exists.

"……Red Cloak."

"Yes. I should be leaving soon myself."

A bad feeling crept over me.

In Faelim, the otherworlder is a creature that exists only in fairy tales.

But if one of them had actually appeared…

Then who's to say a second one can't?

"Trouble is going to come to this Faelim of ours, I fear…"